Turbines grown along with wind-energy demand

Solaire to receive $2.6M for Danbury project

By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Hearst Newspapers :
September 18, 2009

Universities and businesses across Texas are expecting to spend millions in the next few years honing the blades, gearboxes and generators that make up turbines designed to harness power from the wind.

The work, including studies slated for a new University of Houston research park as well as at a massive, 22-acre testing operation planned near Corpus Christi, Texas, has a common goal: Developing a new generation of efficient and reliable wind turbines.

The challenge, said Don Birx, the vice chancellor of research at the University of Houston, is building turbines out of materials strong enough to withstand tremendous pressure in heavy winds -- but without adding more weight and stress to spinning blades that can now stretch beyond 100 yards.

"Everything is focused on the next generation of blades and designs, and building them out of the lightest but strongest materials possible," Birx said.

Birx said he expects that when the University of Houston opens its new research facility next year -- on property previously owned by oilfield services company Schlumberger -- at least 10 researchers will be testing prototypes, honing new turbine designs and trying to make blades more reliable.

That turbine research -- and the nascent wind-power industry the studies support -- have valuable cheerleaders in the nation's capital, where Congress and the Obama administration are eager to propel the next generation of cost-effective and reliable turbines to transform gusts into gigawatts.

The House of Representatives this month passed legislation that would launch the first-ever broad wind-energy research, development and demonstration program at the Energy Department. The measure, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., would authorize $1 billion -- $200 million annually over five years -- to make turbines more efficient, cost-effective and reliable.

The bill would provide a comprehensive blueprint for wind-power research -- with a goal of bringing new advancements to market, said U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. Gordon said the bill provides clear direction for the Department of Energy to help the United States expand wind-powered electricity generation.

The initiative -- which still must pass the Senate -- dovetails with new investments by the Energy Department in wind power.

Earlier this month, the federal government announced plans to dole out $503 million in cash grants for renewable energy projects nationwide, including $114.1 million for the Penascal wind farm in South Texas, $74.6 million for Canandaigua Power Partners operations in Cohocton, N.Y., and $2.6 million for a Solaire Development project in Danbury.

Supporters said they hope the funding will propel explosive growth in power generated from wind and make good on Energy Department predictions that wind could provide 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030. Right now, wind generates about 2 percent of the nation's electricity.

"Wind energy has been and continues to be a very important part of the electricity-generating portfolio in this country," said U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas. But, he added, the technology can be improved upon to make wind-turbine systems and farms more efficient and more effective.

One of the challenges is the high cost of transporting ever-growing rotary blades and heavy tower components from assembly plants to wind farms in gusty but often remote regions. The wind industry has been relying on bigger and bigger blades to produce more power. In the 1980s, a wind turbine with 11-yard blades sized to span a two-lane highway could churn out 45,000 kilowatt hours of power each year. Now, the blades on the biggest new turbines stretch beyond 100 yards -- the size of a football field -- and they can generate 6 megawatts, which is 6 million kilowatt hours, annually.

Because heavier blades translate to more stresses all along a wind tower, research is under way to develop lighter -- and more durable -- materials for making them. The proposed wind-research program could spur business and research institutions that are working at the molecular level to create lighter and more durable materials.

"If we're going to scale larger, you want to have some sort of cost abatement and better durability," Tonko said. "There are ways to produce lighter materials that are more efficient (and cause) less wear and tear on the system."

The Energy Department program also would be tasked with improving gearbox reliability and developing cheaper automation and assembly techniques for large components. It also would support research on the computational modeling and simulation of wind-energy systems -- a direct response to the challenge of generating power from erratic, sometimes unpredictable wind.

Scientists testifying before Congress earlier this year said that improved forecasting and modeling techniques could lead to big gains in a generation by guiding decisions about where to place turbines. One of the biggest obstacles to wind power is the nation's aging electrical transmission grid, which was designed to accommodate power generation at centralized plants closer to the urban customers they serve.

Wind power also is constrained by the lack of ways to store the intermittent power it generates so it can be provided when customers demand it and saved when it is not needed. Researchers are looking at storage techniques as well as alternative uses for power generated in times of low demand.

"The wind doesn't blow 24 hours a day," said John White, executive director of the Lone Star Wind Alliance that is planning two testing facilities in Ingleside, Texas. "(What can we do) when there is a lot of wind at night, but not a lot of demand?"

White said research at institutions across Texas are looking at "every issue right now . . . every facet of it -- there is someone working on it."

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans have questioned the fiscal soundness of government investment in wind power, saying the technology is only viable when propped up by significant subsidies. For instance U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., in August decried wind farms "bought with up to $100,000 of taxpayer subsidies to produce intermittent power that we, as taxpayers, get the privilege of subsidizing at the rate of about $20 a megawatt hour -- when it blows, of course."

The government's Energy Information Administration estimated that in fiscal 2007, taxpayer subsidies for wind-generated electricity, including a production tax credit, equaled $23.37 per megawatt hour -- compared with 68 cents for hydroelectric power and $1.59 for nuclear energy.

Wind advocates counter that the federal government has spent taxpayer dollars supporting every kind of energy -- from nuclear power generation to oil drilling and refining. That kind of support is crucial when a new form of energy is in its early stages, they say.

Tonko defends his proposed federal spending as essential to ensuring the United States is at the forefront in developing and producing wind turbines and systems that increasingly could be used worldwide as countries try to move away from dirtier coal power.

"We want to be the cutting edge," Tonko said. "If we invest in the prototype development and deployment . . . and if we produce jobs in the engineering sectors that create these innovative models, we become the go-to country that can export that technology innovation and at the same time help our industry to operate efficiently."

Texas is the national leader in wind generation. The state has more than 8,300 installed megawatts and another 1,000 under construction. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the runner-up is Iowa, with 3,043 megawatts online, and California, with 2,787.